Thomas Lux's poems embody the sound of deep emotions lightly carried. In their deft, sometimes humorous fashion they unseat the spirit, fastening on the rueful and mysterious poignancies of our lives, like that unopened bottle of maraschino cherries abandoned in the refrigerator, or cocking a snook at the dreadful challenges of commercial leech farming today. For the past twenty-five years, Lux's work has grown from his early experiments in surrealism into a body of work that, while challenging the mind and affecting the funnybone, is designed to touch the heart, a destination Lux attains with the utmost precision and delicacy. This book for the first time brings together in one volume the best of his mature work.